The Agony & The Ecstasy

A tale of two nights beneath the lights

It was the best of nights, it was the worst … ok, ok, it wasn’t that bad but sometimes when you are reading blogs like this it may seem like the sun is always shining, the hair is always perfect, the bugs never bite, and the northern lights dance on command.

In truth, life isn’t like that, or at least mine isn’t.

So I’d like to share with you the stories of two separate nights on the Little Dipper under the northern lights. Before we bought our little C-dory, I long dreamed of being on Lake Superior when ribbons of aurora tangled themselves in the stars. Spoiler alert: that happens in both of the stories that follow. This post isn’t about the fickleness of the northern lights so much as it is about us mere mortals stumbling and bumbling beneath them.

The First Story: Eyes in the Dark

It was three a.m. and the northern lights were dancing I saw them the instant the bow of the Little Dipper cleared the breakwall. Instinctively almost, the boat turned up the West Channel, as if she knew where we’d be heading with just the lightest of touches on the wheel, and came up on plane easily, gliding on waters as calm as the sky itself.

In what seemed only minutes, the Dipper was anchored exactly where I wanted her, the soft sands off the northern tip of Basswood Island within a stone’s throw of Honeymoon Rock. I slipped into my wetsuit, slid into the dark water with an easy grace and swam to a flat rock rising smooth as a tabletop just inches above the water. Everything was perfect.

There was a slowness about things that summer night, a kind of drowsy ease. Without even a hint of wind, the lake itself seemed to be sleeping. I set my tripod up on the rock and focused on making photographs. The sky danced, the waters whispered. I was lulled into dreamlike state. Everything was easy, smooth as the feel of the soft night air against my skin.

Suddenly I heard a strange sound behind me, a kind of snuffling along the shoreline. Instantly my thoughts turned to "bear." In the three decades I’ve been exploring these islands, I’ve seen only a handful of bears but they are here, their tracks stitching a morning beach before the waves come up, or a stick cracking in the dark beneath a footfall.

When I photograph at night, my mantra has always been "Everything slowly." I can't afford to drop my camera or turn an ankle on an unseen rock, so I try to move with an exaggerated slowness. But the sound was getting closer. As carefully as I could I packed my camera, gathered my tripod, slid off the rock, swam to the boat, and pulled myself aboard.

With a flashlight, I scanned the shore. Two sets of eyes stared back at me from the dark rock where I had been just moments before: a pair of otters like slippery commas moving among the rocks. I dried off, pulled the anchor, and pointed the bow of the Little Dipper back towards the constellation of Bayfield’s lights. All the way home, I chuckled about the encounter and marveled at the northern lights still flickering overhead.

Second Story: Blinded by the Lights

I couldn’t find my socks. The most simple of things but enough to keep me from getting to the marina as early as I had hoped. Rushing out the door had me feeling out-of-sorts, discombobulated, clumsy. It was cold. Just days ago there had still been snow drifts in the shaded spots, remnants of Bayfield’s snowiest winter on record. I was so bundled up, I felt a bit like Frosty and moved like the Michelin Man.

It was only my third run of the season and the normally well-practiced routine of getting the Little Dipper out for a night run, felt foreign, herky-jerky. The knots took longer to untie, the engine coughed more than usual, nothing seemed in its place.

I cleared the breakwall, cranked her to the north and throttled up.

Right into a gill net buoy.

I had slid passed Basswood Island barely thinking about that wonderful night with the otters staring back at me in the flashlight beam, chuckling at me, chuckling at them.

This time I didn’t stop. I had a different idea: I’d keep going, round Oak Island and swim into a cave at a place we call Quiet Cove. But the night had other plans.

Just as I was rounding the gray-black snout of Oak Island: SMACK.

Gill nets are long strings of fish nets set by commercial fishermen for trout and whitefish. Although sometimes the length of a football field, the nets themselves are usually deep below the surface and pose little threat to props or boats. But each end is marked by buoy poles meant to guide the fishing boats when the nets are pulled. By daylight, the buoys, which are painted bright colors and have a flag on top, are easy to avoid. At night, not so much.

Before I could even know it was there, it was there, whacking the bow like a branch slapping you in the face as you run through the dark woods. I saw it. I heard it. I felt the pole clunking along the underside hull and then, nothing. The engine seemed fine - no change in RPMs, no clatter or whine, no trailing net tangled in the prop when I checked by the beam of the flashlight.

Still, the collision had left me spooked. I was alone in the dark, miles from home and shaken. I wasn’t far from Quiet Cove where I had planned to swim but now it seemed miles away. The water temperature was 39.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Deep breath. The lights were out and dancing. Maybe that was enough. I would scrap the cave swim and try to make a few photographs from the boat.

Too much motion, even in the calm water and with the camera on a tripod. The shots were blurry. I tried a few shots of the boat.

Still too much motion, although the color in the lights was beginning to show. I tried a few shots inside the boat.

Interesting but still not what I had hoped for. Then, my tripod broke, literally falling to pieces in my hands. As I stood there, still trembling a bit from the buoy encounter, I took it as a sign. Set it aside, I thought to myself. Just lie on your back on the deck surrounded by the facets of northern lights in the sky and reflecting on the still water. Let it be enough. Just watch. And so, I did. After a while, I could no longer be sure if the trembling was from the collision or the awe of being inside the green diamond of northern lights.

I stayed until the cold seeped into my bones, and then a little longer. But then it was time to turn and go. I was still not completely certain if the boat had sustained any damage and I was a long way from home. About halfway there, still miles from the distant lights of Bayfield, the engine whined, the RPMs jumped and it became all-too-obvious I had “spun the propeller” as boaters say, a state that would probably not leave me stranded but would mean a long, slow ride back and some time in the shop. I eased up on the throttle to where the prop seemed to hold and limped down the West Channel, the northern lights fading behind me like smudges on the sky.

In time, I passed Honeymoon Rock where not so long ago I had swum with the otters under the dancing aurora. That night I had laughed all the way home. This night, the most I could muster was a sort of grumble. I averted my eyes, hunched down in the captain’s chair and willed the harbor lights to inch ever closer, thinking not about otters or aurora but of repair bills and longing for the protected waters of the Bayfield marina to welcome me home.

Status report: As of this writing, the Little Dipper is resting comfortably in the driveway awaiting a propeller transplant. She is doing as well as can be expected. Keep her in your thoughts.

(all photographs by Jeff Rennicke and available as prints, including the greasy old propellor which might look nice above the fireplace)